1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a control arrangement for a plurality of consumer units which are allocated to groups, in particular for lighting bodies which can be operated as a group by means of an operating element. Further, the invention relates to a method for controlling the consumer units allocated to groups.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a rule, many lighting bodies are present in larger rooms and buildings and individual groups of these lighting bodies, e.g. individual rows of an arrangement of ceiling lights, are to be turned on or turned off by one operating element, e.g. a simple switch. In the simplest case, this can be achieved in that, from a first operating element, a supply line is laid to which all lighting bodies are connected which are to be operated by the first operating element. In the same manner, the further operating elements and the respectively associated lighting bodies are connected. However, this procedure necessitates the laying of many supply lines and, moreover, has the disadvantage that a once-selected, fixed wired allocation of the lighting bodies to an operating element can only be altered with great effort.
This disadvantage is overcome in principle by the control system described in the assignee's European Patent Application EP-90 100 465. In accordance with this known control system, a control receiver is connected upstream of each consumer unit. Further, the known control system has a commander to which the operating elements are connected and a control line for transmitting control commands from the commander to the control receivers, and, possibly; also for transmitting control signals in the reverse direction. All control receivers are connected to the commander via a common control line and a supply line, so that the wiring of the control receivers and the associated consumer units is configured extremely simply. However, the association of the individual consumer units to a superior consumer unit group is achieved by means of a relatively time consuming and complicated programming procedure. In substance, the programming procedure is based on the fact that a production number (original address) which is already stored in the control receiver on production thereof, and which indicates the characteristics of the connected consumer unit, is replaced by an operational address, which may indicate e.g. the room number, the group number and the individual consumer unit number.
For commissioning the known control system a commissioning program must be set running for initialising the consumer units, which program requires prior programming by specialists. As described, the central commander recognizes the configuration of the consumer unit connected to the control receiver from the production number (original address) transmitted from the control receiver to the commander. If the production number is incorrect, e.g. as a consequence of a long period of storage of the lighting body between production and installation, this leads necessarily to errors in the operation of the control system. Along with the necessary programming by specialists, this represents a significant disadvantage of the known control system.